James Love's blog

This is a copy of the negotiating text for the India-EU Broad-based Trade and Investment Agreement (BTIA), also referred to as the India/EU FTA. It does not include Article 6, which I assume concerns patents, or have any text for Article 9 on Geographical Indications. The text includes country positions. We are not certain of the date of this text. KEI has some commentary at http://keionline.org/node/1692

On March 13, 2013, the U.S. House of Representative held a hearing on U.S.-India Trade Relations. Among the several topics under discussion were "the issuance of compulsory licenses, patent revocations, and other policies on pharmaceuticals" in India.

As others have reported, the India Intellectual Property Appeals Board (IPAB) has upheld the compulsory license on the Bayer patents on the cancer drug sorafenib, sold under the trademark of Nexavar by Bayer.

The 27 February 2013 agreements between the Medicines Patent Pool (MPP) and ViiV Healthcare, a joint venture of GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer, and Shionogi will expand access to affordable pediatric formulas for HIV/AIDS.

On January 8, 2013, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) issued a joint statement on "remedies for standards-essential patents subject to voluntary F/RAND commitments. (Copy of statement here).

WIPO is spending five days in a special session to work on the text for a treaty on copyright exceptions for persons who are blind or have other disabilities.

KEI has obtained a copy of the latest version as of Friday morning, which is attached below.

The first four days have been consumed with highly technical but important debates of the international rules for copyright exceptions. The US and the EU are demanding that all sorts of language be put into the treaty referring to a three step test to restrict the use of exceptions.

For the past year, a treaty on copyright exceptions for persons who are blind or have other disabilities has been hung up on demands by the European Union to insert provocative language on the so called "three step test" in copyright into the treaty. The Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement is in the middle of a similar dispute, with the US pushing language that would place the three step test on top of all copyright limitations and exceptions, including those set out a particular cases in the Berne Convention.

The WIPO Special Session negotiating the text of a new treaty on copyright exceptions for persons with disabilities is meeting from February 18 to 22. Yesterday all of the negotiations were behind closed doors, but this morning WIPO made public a copy of the revised negotiating text (available here: http://www.keionline.org/node/1651).

Attached below is the version of the negotiating text from February 18. It includes several new or edited footnotes.

Fn5. concerns language on translation.

Fns 6 and 9 are proposals for language that would permit a country to limit exceptions to cases where "the particular accessible format, cannot be obtained commercially under reasonable terms for beneficiary persons in that [Member State’s] market."

Fns 7 and 8 are proposals to address the delivery of an accessible work to a person in another country. These are among the more contentiousness issues this week.

On January 16, the India Intellectual Property Appeals Board (IPAB) began a hearing on the merits of Bayer's appeal of India's first compulsory license.

The outcome of this trial, which focuses on the cancer drug Nexavar, is a matter of first impression for the IPAB, and is expected to set precedents on a wide range of issues, including the permissible grounds for granting compulsory licenses, the relationship between the India patent law and the TRIPS Agreement, and the setting of terms and conditions for the compulsory license, including the royalty rates.

Today, January 10, 2013, USTR held a remarkably uninformative briefing on the negotiations for the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement for non-industry NGOs. Barbara Weisel (below center), the chief USTR negotiator for the TPP, led the briefing, accompanied by two persons from the public engagement offices.

At the end of the two day WIPO Extraordinary General Assembly, Member States today agreed "to negotiate and adopt a treaty on limitations and exceptions for visually impaired persons/persons with print disabilities."